The Accountability Test for Those Selling Transparency: Roger Zini, Philippe Amon and the N-Soft–SICPA Dispute

The editorial

SICPA’s product is not simply ink or software. The company sells trust. It promises governments that they can track products from tobacco to alcohol, stop smuggling and recover lost tax revenue. That promise rests on one foundation: accurate, auditable records.

The same standard is now being applied to SICPA itself.

According to N-Soft, the company led by Roger Zini entered into a partnership with SICPA in April 2020 but never received its share of the resulting revenue. The dispute is now in arbitration in London. N-Soft’s allegation is serious: payment of its share was made dependent on SICPA invoicing public authorities and collecting those invoices. N-Soft also says it was not given sufficient access to the account into which the payments were collected.

If that account is accurate, the arrangement looks like this: SICPA issues the invoices, SICPA collects the money and SICPA calculates its partner’s share. The partner cannot see whether the calculation is correct. In a system where one company is the player, the referee and the scoreboard, “trust us” is not enough.

Nor is SICPA a company automatically entitled to the benefit of the doubt on this issue. In 2023, the Swiss Office of the Attorney General ordered SICPA to pay a total of CHF 81 million in connection with corporate criminal liability for acts of corruption. The amount comprised a CHF 1 million fine and an CHF 80 million compensatory claim. According to the prosecutor, organisational deficiencies at the company enabled the bribery of foreign public officials in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. [1]

In other words, the company promising to protect government revenue had internal controls that, according to the Swiss prosecutor’s findings, failed to prevent bribery in three countries. Questions about a company with that record and its financial dealings with partners cannot be brushed aside with corporate silence.

The questions are clear—and straightforward to answer

Does the alleged agreement with N-Soft exist?

Which invoices were issued to public authorities under that agreement, and on what dates?

How much of the invoiced money was collected?

How much was transferred to N-Soft?

If it was not transferred, why not?

The same transparency should be expected of Roger Zini. N-Soft should state clearly how much it is claiming and how it arrived at that figure. These questions are not intended to exonerate or accuse either side, but to make independent verification of the accounts possible.

For a company that tells governments “we bring the unrecorded into the record” to leave its own payment arrangements in the dark is, at the very least, a contradiction. SICPA’s credibility is measured by books that can be opened, not by promotional videos. For now, SICPA’s ledger remains closed.

Based on reporting from: Swiss Office of the Attorney General — Annual Report 2023 (p. 27).